


the idea of being able to find home

by a_novel_idea



Series: wait [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Hospitals, M/M, Recovery, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Waiting, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:32:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2398550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_novel_idea/pseuds/a_novel_idea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saal remembers the night the Mark had come in; he’d gone to bed with a fierce itch, and had woken up branded. His mother had been so proud, so grateful to have a son that was destined to have someone to call his own. It wasn’t for everyone, she would say. He remembers the way his father had rolled his eyes, had always told him, behind his mother’s back, that soulmates and Marks and all that nonsense were just that: nonsense. His father had never needed a Mark to settle down and make a proper family, and neither would his sons.</p>
<p>There is no family now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the idea of being able to find home

Peter Quill has a soulmark. He’s had it since he was pretty young, since before Yondu and his crew whisked him away from Terra, since before his mom got sick and she was able to be happy for him. It’s a pretty decent size, smaller than the palm of his hand, but hardly unnoticeable. It sits in the back of his thigh, just above his knee. It used to be navy blue and super nova yellow, stark against the pale skin of his leg; it’s black now.

Peter remembers sitting in his mother’s hospital room late at night, dozing to the steady wheezing of his mother’s lungs and the light hum of the television in the corner. He doesn’t remember what they looked like, or who they were, or what had happened, but he knows someone’s soulmate died. The newscasters kept calling it a tragedy, and he didn’t know why. He’d asked his mother the next morning, but she’d just told him that he would know when he was older; she’d run her fingers over her own dark green Mark, and gave into the haze of the drugs.

He’s older now.

Peter is twenty-three and in the middle of one of the biggest jobs of his career when the color starts to fade. He’s elbow deep in the security wiring of a Lurian vault, praying that what he’s after is inside, when the snap of pain whites out his vision. He comes to, barely balanced on the boxes and crates he’d shoved together for a make-shift ladder, with his knee buckling under him. He has just enough mind to check for blood before he sparks two wires together and forces the vault doors open.

He tumbles down, tries to slow his decent until he can drop to the floor with minimal injuries. He tries to make himself breathe through the discomfort just enough to sit up and assess the condition he’s in. He knows he doesn’t have the time, but Peter yanks his boot off and rolls his pants leg up until he can get his hand on the Mark on the back of his leg. His fingers come away with smeared color, navy and sunflower pigment smudged like cheap paint.

An alarm sounds, tells Peter that he better get moving, better finish the job so Yondu doesn’t skin him alive, because his time is up, and not just for this job.

***

Garthan Saal has a soulmark. He’s had it since he was ten, since before he lost everything that was anything to him, since before he forgot what his brother looked like, how his mother laughed. It’s a pretty decent size, fits snugly in the palm of his hand, but it’s too noticeable. It sits on the curve of his shoulder, at the very end of his collarbone. It used to be black, as dark as the night sky on his home world; it’s dark blue and cat’s eye yellow now.

He remembers the night the Mark had come in; he’d gone to bed with a fierce itch, and had woken up branded. His mother had been so proud, so grateful to have a son that was destined to have someone to call his own. It wasn’t for everyone, she would say. He remembers the way his father had rolled his eyes, had always told him, behind his mother’s back, that soulmates and Marks and all that nonsense were just that: nonsense. His father had never needed a Mark to settle down and make a proper family, and neither would his sons.

There is no family now.

Saal is twenty-nine the first time someone tries to cut the Mark from his body. He’s been with the Kree for a month, and he hasn’t so much as uttered a word; he will be the soldier he’s been trained to be. He’s been awake for eight days, eight bloody and exhausting days, and he knows that, while there is no respite coming in the near future, he only has so long before his body has to shut down. He knows he can last another two days, knows he can.

He is very, very wrong.

They peel the skin away from his shoulder, carving away muscle to try and dig out the color. He clenches his jaw, grinds his teeth so hard he can hear them creak, but he will not scream, he will not give in. It’s the most difficult thing he’s ever done in his life, letting them carve away the only hope he’s let himself keep, more difficult than the Corps Academy, more difficult than leaving his home behind, even when there was nothing let for him there; these Kree want to rid him of the last bit of sanity he has, the last thing that is well and truly his.

***

A hospital room is a hospital room, Peter discovers, no matter where you are in the universe. They’re pretty similar, down to the single bed and the basic functions of the equipment. The hallways still smell of disinfectant, and the heart monitors are still a sure fire sound. Hospitals still make him sick to his stomach, make him long for the closest toilet, but he steels himself. He’s waited twenty-nine years for this, and he isn’t about to let a little childhood trauma scare him off

His name is Garthan Saal, and Peter recognizes him. despite popular belief, he’s only been arrested a handful of times, and never because he didn’t mean to, not until recently anyway. He’s always played fall man for the Ravengers, acted the young ruffian in the wrong place at the wrong time. Playing the orphan card had worked pretty well until his age had started to show.

Peter had been maybe twenty/ twenty-one when the Ravengers had made on of their bi-annual supply stops of Xandar. He’d had the _Milano_ to himself for maybe a month, but Yondu had still preferred that he stay close most of the time, so he sucked it up, kept his mouth shut, and did his part to keep their operation up and running.

He and Kraglin were in the middle of hauling a six month supply of protein packs back to the stock ship, and he’d been so tired. He’d worked his ass off to bring the Milano up to proper ship code, plus a little extra, for nine days straight, but he knew not to complain about Yondu’s orders when they actually make sense. Kraglin was driving, weaving the hover hauler through the traffic that crowds up the working class terminals.

Peter was dozing in the passenger seat, mostly dead to the world as he tried to catch all the sleep he could, when Kraglin mumbled something about stopping for more supplies. Peter was pretty sure that he had dozed off after waving Kraglin away in the mid-afternoon light, and when he had woken it was to his comm unit screaming in his pocket. He fumbled open the channel and almost threw the device out the window when Yondu’s shouting came through mid-rant. He’d been very confused, what with Yondu yelling and the time displayed on the dash of the hover; they were supposed to have been back on the _Leviathan_ six hours ago.

Peter had started yelling back, startling a few of the people that could hear him through the door, because the only way, then and now, to stop Yondu from yelling before he was finished was to yell louder and make him pay attention. Peter only knew a few things at the time: he didn’t know where in the city they are, he didn’t know where Kraglin had run off to, and he had no idea where to start looking.

Yondu had eventually calmed down enough to ping Kraglin’s locator; he was half a block west and had been for some time. Peter gathered himself together, checked the safety valve on his phaser, and climbed out of the hover, praying that their ration supply wouldn’t be stolen while he hunted down the errant first mate.

Kraglin had been in a goddamn bar.

It wasn’t that bad of a bar really, full of a mixed crowd, and Peter realized why when someone handed over a chip full of units after a lost game.

_Kraglin’s gone off the deep end if he thinks Yondu will forgive him for gambling on Ravenger time_ , Peter had thought.

He recognized some of the faces scattered through the room, and some recognized him, but no one picked him out as a Ravenger. It hadn’t taken long to find Kraglin in the crowd; he’d been half way drunk and in the middle of a hand of cards, tucked into a table by the corner of the bar. Peter would probably split the other faces at the table down the middle; half of them seemed to be slumming it, and the other half were with Kraglin and him of their side of the law. Two of them, Peter noticed, could go either way, but then the one with the pretty blue eyes had leaned forward and the chain around his neck had glittered in the muggy lights, and Peter had been running with the Ravengers long enough to know Nova Corpsman ID tags when he saw them.

***

Peter doesn’t remember much of what happened next; he remembers there was a fight, that a few of the others at the table took exception to him dragging Kraglin away before they’d had a chance to win their units back. He knows there was a hospital involved, and that the barman and the two Nova Corpsmen leaned in Peter’s favor when the Millennials came around asking questions. He knows Yondu was furious, and not at Peter for once. The Ravenger’s captain nearly leveled the hospital when he found out that Peter had almost lost an eye, would have, if the Corpsmen hadn’t been so quick to intervene. (For all of his huffing and puffing, tough love and all that bullshit, Peter knows that if it came down to it, Yondu would lay down his life for his crew. Sometimes it still surprises Peter that that includes him.)

So he doesn’t remembers much, not most of the fight certainly, and not the trip to the hospital, but he does remember those pretty blue eyes.

***

So Peter sits and he waits and he pretends that he wouldn’t be running scared if Nova Prime hadn’t ordered him to stay. Rocket and Groot keep him company the most, but Gamora and Drax don’t slack on checkups either. Nova Prime visits once; she’s quiet, and it’s an awkward visit, but she doesn’t stay long. Yondu calls sometimes, mostly just leaves a message on the Milano’s vidrec, but Peter notices that all of the up-to-date information concerning the Ravengers is streamed directly into his ship’s datadrive. The Ravengers are a group of nomads, never staying in one place too long, but Peter likes the idea of always knowing where they are, likes the idea of being able to find home any time he wants.

Mostly it’s just him, and Saal, and Saal’s nurse Miranda. He sits by Saal’s bed and plays with the holovid Gamora beings him, keeps himself up to date with the backlash of what’s happened, watches the Kree Empire struggle to keeps its feet after centuries of war now that their biggest contender is dead and gone. The Xandarian Empire is doing much better by comparison, though they still struggle with the loss of a few hundred soldiers; the Nova Corps has always been a devastatingly powerful, but small group.

Peter knows they’re rebuilding, but the war between the Kree and the Xandarians has always taken place on the edge of the territories, never fully affecting the core planets. The attack on Xandar changes things. People have been flooding into recruitment stations, have become willing to take up arms and defend their homes. Xandarians have always been a pretty peaceful group, and Peter hopes they don’t throw that away in the name of revenge. He knows firsthand it’s never pretty.

Peter sits and ponders over what he’s going to do with his life for three weeks. Three agonizing weeks of a hospital room, doctors and nurses, close calls, closer calls, waiting, hoping, praying to any god that will listen to once, just this once, let him have something for himself. He knows soulmates aren’t always what you want, but they are what you need.

***

It’s a joke. It’s got to be a joke, a _bad_ joke at that, but Peter Quill stands at the food of his bed and doesn’t bat an eye, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away. He just stands there, waiting. Waiting for what, Saal doesn’t know, can’t even think about because this. isn’t. happening. He can feel the panic in his chest, but he squashes it down, pulls at the thread of his training, tangled and pushed to the back of his mind. His thoughts short out, leave him stranded, and he can’t, can’t, can’t process this.

He runs through what he knows: Peter Quill is a criminal, damaged and swayed by a Ravenger upbringing. Peter Quill is trouble. Peter Quill has no respect for what Saal has done with his life. Peter Quill….Peter Quill had been willing to throw away everything to save Xandar. Peter Quill wouldn’t be here is Nova Prime didn’t approve.

Saal decides that he and his commander-in-chief will have words when he can breathe properly. He decides he will not deal with this right now. He decides he does not want Peter here, and he says so.


End file.
